DENVER, CO. - JANUARY 08: Natalia Marshall speaks about her Michael Marshall during a press conference to discuss the death of Mr. Marshall, while he was detained at the Denver County Jail in November. The event was held on Friday, January 8, 2016. (Photo By AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

Although Denver’s district attorney declined to press criminal charges against the five deputies involved in the death of inmate Michael Marshall, there are more investigations coming.

The Denver Sheriff Department will review its deputies’ actions while Denver Health will look into how its nurses responded during the restraint of the 112-pound man who was in a schizophrenic episode.

Denver’s independent monitor, Nick Mitchell, also will be involved, and Stephanie O’Malley, the safety director, will weigh in, too.

Lawyers for Marshall’s family have said they plan to sue the city, which eventually could lead to an airing of facts in a courtroom.

On Friday, the city released more than 13 hours of video footage from inside the jail. The footage shows multiple angles of the deputies’ struggle with Marshall, and it shows what was going on in Marshall’s unit in the hour before the incident happened.

That video footage, and deputies statements about what happened, will be central to those coming investigations.

At the sheriff’s department, the internal affairs bureau and the conduct review office will be looking into the case to decide whether disciplinary action is warranted.

“They’ll look at everything to see if the actions of the deputies were appropriate and if they followed their training, if they were aligned with policies,” said Daelene Mix, a spokeswoman for Denver’s Department of Safety.

The safety department has asked those involved in the investigations to work quickly and to devote extra resources to finishing it, Mix said. That’s because of the public interest in the case, she said.

“There is more demand from the public in these cases where someone has died to get something done quicker,” Mix said.

Kelli Christensen, a spokeswoman for Denver Health, said she could not comment beyond confirming that the situation was being looked into. Nurses who work inside the jail are employees of the hospital.

Marshall was arrested on Nov. 7 on a trespassing charge and was being held on a $100 bail. The incident happened on Nov. 11, and Marshall died nine days later after his family took him off life support.

Marshall choked on his vomit while being restrained, an autopsy found. Denver’s medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.

Already, some have expressed outrage over the district attorney’s decision, which was announced Thursday. In deciding not to prosecute, Mitch Morrissey said the Denver medical examiner’s report was key to his decision.

The autopsy found multiple factors contributed to Marshall’s death, including chronic heart and lung disease. A doctor would not be able to definitively say that the deputies’ restraint was a direct cause of death, Morrissey wrote in a decision statement.

To bring charges, Morrissey must be able to meet a legal standard that would withstand state laws. But the sheriff’s department will have a different standard in its investigation, Mix said.

Since Marshall’s death, the public has questioned what happened. Marshall’s family demanded to see the video, and their supporters went on a hunger strike and disrupted the Martin Luther King Jr. Marade to raise awareness.

The city gave the Marshall family and their lawyers the video footage on Thursday and then released it to others Friday.

In the footage, Marshall can be seen having a psychotic episode as he paced his inmate pod while holding a bundled blanket with his shirt and scraps of paper inside it.

The incident began while Marshall was allowed free time from his cell. At one point, he walked behind a staircase, and another inmate backed away from him with his hands up and then walked away.

It was unclear what transpired between the two, but two deputies intervened. They guided Marshall toward a sallyport, which is a secure entryway to the inmate pod.

There, Marshall walked back and forth, dragging his blanket and spilling the paper scraps. A deputy told Marshall to sit on a metal bench, and the inmate complied.

But when Marshall tried to get up and walk past a deputy, that deputy put his hand on Marshal to push him back. The takedown took seven seconds as deputies grabbed Marshall by the shoulders and pulled him to the ground.

It is unclear what happened to Marshall while he was lying face down on the floor because the deputies’ bodies block the camera’s view. That means the deputies’ statements to investigators are critical to the narrative.

Morrissey’s report, which was written based on the video and interviews, said Marshall continued to struggle with deputies while he was being restrained. They used nunchucks on his ankles and buckled leg restraints and handcuffs on him.

At some point, Marshall vomited but that is not seen on the video.

Five deputies held Marshall on the floor for 13 minutes and 45 seconds before they rolled him over and lifted him into a restraint chair. He was wearing a spit hood over his face.

Deputies then wheeled Marshall into a corridor where nurses checked his vital signs. When they realized Marshall was not breathing, deputies began unstrapping him from the chair and started CPR.

Forty-seven minutes passed from the time deputies took Marshall to the floor until an ambulance carrying him left for the hospital.

Mari Newman, an attorney for the Marshall family, said she and her legal staff have watched the video multiple times. They have reached one conclusion.

“It is abundantly clear Mr. Marshall did not do anything to cause the amount of force used against him,” Newman said. “He’s definitely suffering from a mental illness. Instead of treating him with understanding and compassion, the level of force they used was not only disproportionate but unjustified.”

But Don Sisson, an attorney who represents deputies involved in the case, saw it differently. He believes the video is favorable to his clients.

The deputies’ actions were appropriate and reasonable, he said.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Sisson said, “but these deputies have a job to do and that’s what they’re trained to do.”

Noelle Phillips, a Nashville native and a Western Kentucky University journalism school grad, covers law enforcement and public safety for The Denver Post. She has spent more than 20 years in the newspaper world. During that time, she's covered everything from rural towns in the Southeast to combat in the Middle East. The Denver Post is her fifth newspaper and her first in the West.

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